Flight Schools See Downside To Crackdown

By DAVID FIRESTONE with MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: May 27, 2002

The security crackdown meant to keep terrorist hijackers out of American flight schools has forced thousands of foreign students to train overseas, weakening the country's global dominance in aviation training, officials in the industry say.

That shift, they warn, could ultimately mean greater risks for air travelers, because American flight schools are the main source of well-trained commercial pilots for foreign airlines.

''The United States has always made most of the aircraft in use around the world, we produce most of the instructors and we train most of the pilots,'' said Joseph E. Burnside, vice president for government and industry affairs of the National Air Transportation Association, the trade organization for the general aviation industry. ''But now we're concerned that we may be losing that market.''

''If the government doesn't get its act together, students are going to begin training overseas, and that training will be of lesser quality than they would receive in the United States,'' Mr. Burnside argued. ''There will be an impact on aviation safety worldwide.''

Government officials defend the sharpened scrutiny of foreign flight students as a long-overdue effort to rein in a sprawling, loosely regulated system that was easily exploited by the Sept. 11 hijackers, a third of whom trained at American flight schools.

For years, many foreign airlines have sent their pilots to the United States for refresher courses, alongside thousands of international students. The hijackers took the same course, moving from one small training center to another around the country and taking advantage of the breadth and anonymity of the American flight-school system.

After the September attacks, Congress imposed new restrictions requiring background checks of many foreigners studying at flight schools here, and immigration officials tightened visa requirements. But the White House has not yet agreed to the background check procedures, and the Justice Department, meanwhile, is refusing to let most foreign students or pilots train to fly business jets or airliners.

As a result, according to flight schools and aviation universities around the country, thousands of foreign students who would normally be studying here are learning to fly overseas. Several international airlines have moved their training offshore. Many of the students now being diverted to schools abroad are not those entering as individuals, as the Sept. 11 hijackers did, but employees of well-established airlines who have legitimate careers in aviation.

Several flight schools that catered to overseas students have closed, and most of the largest have laid off employees.

Representative John L. Mica, a Florida Republican who is chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, acknowledged that the Bush administration was taking much longer than expected to write the rules requiring background checks for foreign student pilots, a delay that is holding up the careers of many pilots and driving them overseas. That could backfire on the United States, he said, if pilots get licenses in other countries with no background checks.

''Because the process still isn't in place yet, we know that foreign students who have always come here to study are now going to European schools and elsewhere,'' Mr. Mica said. ''That could make the situation even worse, because if they fly into the United States without any review, we have the risk of people subverting the whole process we've set up.''

He said that he hoped to persuade international aviation officials to adopt background standards similar to those in the United States, but that it might be several years before the process was sufficiently smooth here to lure the foreign students back.

A spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is holding up the background checks called for in the Transportation Security Act, said the delay was the result of careful review. ''We don't just rubber-stamp rules from the agencies,'' said the spokesman, Trent Duffy, referring to the Justice Department. ''This is a very significant rule, and rigorous regulatory review is a hallmark of the Bush administration.''

Another government official said the Justice Department was simply not ready to study the backgrounds of every foreign flight student.

Bad for Business

In the midst of the administration's internal debate a few weeks ago, China Southern Airlines, the largest carrier in China, decided to train 150 of its pilots in Perth, Australia, instead of Arizona, canceling a $6 million contract with the International Airline Training Academy in Glendale, Ariz.

Jean-Marc Eloy, the school's owner, had already lost more than half of his international flight students since Sept. 11 and laid off seven instructors. As a consultant to China Southern, Mr. Eloy flew to Perth after the airline's decision, and was surprised to discover a number of new flight academies that have sprung up recently in Australia, along with a bevy of students who would otherwise be in the United States.